Shamshad Begum ~ Listening From A Distance

Let us not forget Shamshad Begum's teaming with the very melodious Ghulam Mohammad who followed to the end of his career, traditions in film music established by his mentor Naushad Ali. She sang a host of songs for this fine composer but was often made to play second fiddle to Lata in films like the Madhubala-Karan Dewan-Rehman starrer Pardes (1950), in which the latter sang at least four solo jewels as also a चटपटी  duet with Rafi, and Shamshad sang a mediocrity like हुआ तेरा मेरा प्यार फटा-फट  picturized on Mukri and a junior artiste. Unfortunately, there would be others of this type, too many in fact, for an artiste of her stature. However, Ghulam Mohammad and his right arm, the lyricist Shakeel Badayuni, also created in this film two diametrically opposite wonder works to test Shamshad's vocals and she came to the fore with her rendering of the rousing gypsy track मेरे घूंगरवाले बाल हो राजा   picturized on the vivacious and undulating Cuckoo and the sobering एक रुत आये एक रुत जाये picturized on one Shakuntala.

What she could not do for Ghulam Mohammad in Pardes Shamshad did in Rail Ka Dibba (1953 & Shammi Kapoor in his film debut, I believe) and we have at least three lilting solos (not to speak of the boisterous duet ला दे मोहे बालमा  with Rafi-saab's vocals also at their peak in this vocal gymnastics) written by Shakeel in छम छमा छम पायल बाजे... , पापी दुनियासे दूर ... and my personal favourite आँगन मोरे आओजी... The track is utter delight gently ushered in by the flute, wafting in on a soft breeze, almost like a cradle song lulling the listener.......

Contemporaneously with Naushad and Ghulam Mohammad there were other composers, those of the old guard like Khemchand Prakash, Ram Ganguly, Pt. Shyam Sundar, Pt. Amarnath, Sachin Dev Burman, Chitalkar Ramchandra, Sajjad Hussein, Vasant Desai, Nashad, Chitragupta, S. N. Tripathi, Hansraj Behl and others, in the post-independence era who recognized the musical depths in Shamshad's voice and plumbed them. While these names are fading memories today, their music is not. One still stops short when an echo from the past comes on. Nothing like the good old 78 r.p.m. to restore thought and remembrance to their rightful place....the heart.

Khemchand Prakash: Shamshad sang his tuning of lyricist Bharat Vyas' gentle lyric in the Kishore Sahu-Ramola starrer 'Rimjhim' (1949): न तुम आये न नींद आई  तुम्हारी याद ही आई ... 

Sawan Aya Re. There is poetry in the very title and that 're' is a lilt in itself. Pt. Shyam Sundar composed the fine duet written for Shamshad with Rafi, once again by Pt. Bharat Vyas and picturized on Kishore Sahu and Ramola. We all remember the melancholy ऐ  दिल न मुझे याद दिला बातें  पुरानी ...

Shamshad gave all she had in crooning Behzad Lakhnavi's lyric,काहे कोयल शोर मचाए रे, मोहे अपना कोई याद आये रे...tuned by Ram Ganguly and picturized on Nargis in Raj Kapoor's first ever production Aag (1948). Her three great solos on the discs for this film notwithstanding (the other two being न आंखोंमें आँसू  न होठों पे हाये, मगर एक मुद्दत हुई  मुस्कुराए..., and the less heard  दिल लूट गया... ), it's a pity that barring the rambunctious एक दो तीन आजा मौसम है रंगीन  club track in Aawara (1951), Raj and his composers, Shanker-Jaikishan, had nothing further to do with Shamshad Begum, despite his fondness for her ("ये  शमशाद  बेगम  हैं , जो बोलतीं  कम हैं , पर गाती  हैं  कुछ  ज़्यादा ",  he said of her once before an audience).

And then there was this fine solo written by Raja Mehdi Ali Khan and tuned by Sajjad Hussein for the Rehana-Prem Adeeb starrer 'Magroor' (1950): तुम्हें बागोंमें सावनके नज़ारे याद करते  हैं ...a great solo indeed.

I loved Shamshad Begum when she sang for the great C. Ramchandra! I always will: not too many songs there but the handful that this composer made her sing, quite a few among them duets that he himself sang with her will stay with us forever. But then he was that kind of composer: whether it was Shamshad and Binapani Mukherjee or Amirbai Karnataki in the early years, or Lata and Asha later on, his lady singers were special and he managed to get the best out of their vocal cords. His was a unique sense of melody: I have not forgotten how, years ago in the 60s we went hunting, often upon a whim, for the fast-disappearing 78s of his compositions, that we sought to retrieve from Twin Records and Rhythm House in old Bombay.

Despite Lata's great solos in Patanga (1949) starring Nigar Sultana, Shyam Kumar and the very funny Gope, and Nirala (1950) starring Dev Anand and Madhubala, we get very nostalgic when we listen to Rajendra Krishan's मेरे पिया गए रंगून..., ओ दिलवालों दिलका लगाना अच्छा है पर कभी-कभी..., दुनिया को प्यारे फूल और सितारे..., गोरे-गोरे मुखड़े पर गेसू जो छा गए..., बोलोजी दिल लोगे तो क्या क्या दोगे..., प्यारके जहाँ की निराली सरकार है  from the first and मुहब्बत मेरी  रंग लाने  लगी है ...,  a solo, as also दिलमें किसिके रहना हो तो किसकी  इजाज़त चाहिए , a duet with Chitalkar, from the second. And, of course, there was also P.L. Santoshi's टम-टम से  झांको न रानी जी  गाड़ी से गाड़ी लड़ जाएगी, from the Kamini Kaushal-Kishore Sahu starrer Namoona (1949). In a word: Unbelievable! 

When O.P. Nayyar stormed in with his unconventional music that set our feet (and our hearts) tap-tapping, for Guru Dutt's noir-based Aar Paar (1954), the industry was up in arms against this iconoclast who defied tradition to the end of his career. The government-owned A.I.R. refused to play a lot of  his music. To this day one does not understand what the hullabaloo was all about even for those times because the immortal C. Ramchandra had already introduced his own brand of exoticism via the Carribean beat in मोम्बासा ....रात मिलनकी ... and मैं हूँ एक खलासी... along with other numbers in his Sargam (1950), as had Shankar-Jaikishan with their Barsaat the year before, with which the western classical influence finally came to stay in our film music. (One cannot help bringing that in, here).

But O.P. had two champions: one in the fledgeling Radio Ceylon growing in popularity by the day and the other in Shamshad Begum who commanded enough status at the time to put her foot down and embrace his music recognizing its intrinsic worth. She had already sung the title song for O.P. in Aar Paar which had been picturized on a very young Kumkum, and went on to record more numbers under his baton for the next few years, despite the emerging Asha Bhonsle who would finally take over (the mellifluous Geeta Dutt was already a formidable challenge). With all his rebellion O.P. rarely, if ever, lost track of melody.
That same year 'Mangu' was released and in it Shamshad sang the flirtatious ज़रा प्यार करले बाबु... while Asha Bhonsle had her first three solos with the composer who would shape her future, including the haunting, still moving sitar-led बोल परदेसिया ये तूने क्या किया … 

Geeta Roy, now Mrs.Guru Dutt, would render most of the delightful solos and duets with Rafi in hubby's Mr. & Mrs. 55 the next year, but Shamshad still showed her mettle with अब तो जी होने लगा किसीकी सूरत का  सामना...  picturized, once again, on a junior artist.
But she went on to sing other classics (and we know them all) for O.P. after that, notably in films like the great C.I.D., Musafirkhana, Chhoo Mantar, Naya Daur (I, for one, can imagine her leading साथी हाथ बढ़ाना despite the folksy रेश्मी सलवार कुड़ता  जालिका ), Howrah Bridge, and Naya Andaz. This last carried the immortal Shamshad-Kishore duet मेरी नीन्दोंमें तुम मेरे ख्वाबोंमें तुम, हो चुके हम तुम्हारी मुहब्बत में  गुम..., the wonderful two-sided 78r.p.m. version of this song with its ultra-haunting opening (now rarely heard in its fullness). There is also a solo in the film which has always invited special attention viz. Jan Nisar Akhtar's lyric picturised on Meena Kumari: रात रंगीली गाएरे , मोहसे रहा न जाये रे ...., as also तू आजा रे , के दिल है बेक़रार...in which Shamshad leads Rafi and Kishore.

When Sahir Ludhianvi, that stormy petrel amongst our filmi poets, was not taking apart society for its many ills and holding a mirror before its face, he was intoxicating us with the controlled eroticism in his love songs. Back in the early '50s before that ill-fated one-rupee prestige issue that brought him and composer Sachin Dev Burman to a parting of the ways, the two were a formidable team. Among the many films that they teamed together in was G.P. Sippy's Shahenshah (1953), starring Ranjan and a very alluring Kamini Kaushal. The film also brought Gevacolour to filmgoers but the highlight was the intoxicating जाम थामले सोचते ही सोचते न बीते सारी रात...rendered by Shamshad. While the song was lost for many a year, I see it today on an enterprising CD here and there and on YT. It is worth a listen.

Shamshad sang other songs for SD notably in films like Baazi (1951) in which she sang Sahir's rather nondescript शरमाये काहे, the Karan Dewan-Vyjayantimala starrer Bahar (1951) in which she sang Rajendra Krishan's wistful ओ परदेसिया...प्यारकी बहार लेके and the hugely popular सैय्याँ  दिलमें आना रे  and दुनिया का मज़ा ले लो ) and the Dilip-Kamini Kaushal starrer Shabnam (1950) from which we remember Qamar Jalalabadi's hilarious ये दुनिया रूप की चोर and the soulful तू महलमें रहनेवाली with Mukesh). 

Think of the melody in Shamshad Begum's voice and you think back also to other long-forgotten composers:
(1) Nashaad and you recall the three, ethereal gems she sang for him in the Ashok Kumar-Nadira starrer Naghma (from 1953) viz. J. Naqshab'sऐ मेरे मजबूर दिल as also two others ranked amongst the best of her career viz.काहे जादू किया मुझको इतना बता, जादूगर बालमा and बड़ी मुश्किलसे दिलकी बेक़रारी को करार आया...

(2) Vasant Desai: for whom she sang in Minerva Movietone's Sheesh Mahal (1950) starring Sohrab Modi, Naseem Bano, Pushpa Hans and Pran. We still remember Shams Lucknowi's great धुप छाँव है दुनिया ...as also  the eloquent हुस्नवालोंकी गलियोंमें जाना नहीं... 

(3) The then up and coming Chitragupta who recorded at least one duet in Shamshad's voice with Rafi-saab for the Naseem Bano-Ranjan film Sindbad The Sailor (1953), and we remember with relish Anjum Jaipuri's अदासे झूमते हुए, दिलोंको चुमते हुए, यह कौन मुस्कुरा दिया. 

(4) Hansraj Behl for whom she sang with gusto songs like भीगा भीगा प्यार का समाँ, बतादे तुझे जाना है कहाँ...in a beat that might have put O.P. Nayyar to shame~a truly lively Prem Dhawan lyric that she sang with Rafi in the Bharat Bhushan-Ameeta starrer Sawan (1959). If 'gusto' were a word in Punjabi it would still not do justice to the energy bursting from this composition!

(5) S.N. Tripathi: we remember this giant among composers, largely relegated to mythology and fantasy which dwarfed his progress in the industry. Back in the early 1950s when fantasies were a rage and held their own against mainstream films Homi Wadia's Basant Pictures brought to the screen an Arabian Nights fantasy Alladin Aur Jadui Chiragh, starring Meena Kumari and Mahipal in which the joint voices of Shamshad and Rafi-saab virtually reverberated as they sang यूँ ही उल्फत के मारों पर ये दुनिया ज़ुल्म करती है. 
*****

People, I could not, not have written this. And yet I feel this was a job half achieved and a remembrance not complete. In fact, I am still discovering songs in her voice I had not heard before! I do not know at what particular moment the offers would have stopped coming to this great songstress, but am convinced they stopped even while she was still in the prime of her singing! The thrush in her vocals was stifled before its time was come! I heard her in the 60s singing snatches in bad songs for Ravi (Pyar Ka Sagar) and Kalyanji Anandji (Bluff Master, Upkaar)~composers who despite their own worth probably had no idea of what she had done before or of what she could still have done, had Naushad Ali and O.P. Nayyar remained with her. Both were pretty active almost to the end of the 60s.

The end, however, came with O.P.'s कजरा मुहब्बतवाला that Shamshad sang with Asha  (Kismat~1968)~a composition that was an insult not only to himself but also to the two great voices he had once helped nurture!

Indeed, in the light of all this, while what Shamshad Begum has given us will remain unforgettable, what happened to her will remain unforgivable!

हाफ़िज़ खुदा आपका , बेगम साहिबा !